Epson Pro Cinema 810 Home Theater Projector

February 8, 2007 - Vijay

Epson Pro Cinema 810 on HDTV

I won’t say I was surprised, but the Epson really shines on HDTV. Here are a few images of HDTV content. I opted not for the HD color preset, but for the much brighter Cinema Day color preset. The images following were all taken with Cinema Day, with no adjustments to the color.

Might as well start with Superbowl, which I recorded on my HD DVR: Wow!

Yes football fans, Peyton Manning is in the wrong uniform below (the image was from a short piece they ran during the game.)

And I watch a lot of music videos, so here first is a shot from the band Sugarland, and then again with Bon Jovi. Finally Pete Townsend of the Who from the HD Isle of Wight concert.

Watching HDTV content was very impressive. Dynamic and rich colors are the operative term. As much as I like my BenQ PE8720, (which is visibly sharper), my BenQ lacks the horsepower, and the punch of the Epson (OK, to be fair, the lamp on my BenQ has over 1300 hours on it, so I’ve probably lost at least 25% of it’s brightness already. Still, the Epson impressed!

One more – The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and guest Bill Cosby!

By the way, here’s the same frame again, shot in Cinema Night mode, which is much more suited for the color balance of movies. I thought I’d toss this in to give you an idea of the significant difference you can find between modes. You’ll note the lower image has a much warmer (redish) flavor, as expected:

OK, that’s enough to consider, here are a few more images, and then it’s time to look at some of the non-image quality related aspects of the Pro Cinema 810, in the Performance section.